What is Atheism?

[Whateverist]

I'm sorry but that doesn't make any sense to me. It sounds like you are saying you don't know if gods really exist but then turn around and say they don't. I'm not criticizing I just don't understand. To me it's very black and white- either gods exists or they don't. I say they don't so I'm an atheist. I have no belief in them and when reworded I lack a belief in them.

It's a word game about burden of proof. Atheist think that if it's simply a "lack of belief", they don't shoulder any intellectual burden of proof for their belief.

But it isn't a positive claim. I make no claims regarding the undefined term 'gods' because I know nothing about them. I know that the descriptions of those who do claim to know gods do not agree.

No one requires a permit not to believe in claims regarding poorly defined absurdities.

With that logic, babies are atheists because they "lack a belief".

But they are atheists until they become programmed to believe, they don't. They are thus non-believers. Of course the kinds of things about which it is possible for them to form a belief will change over time. But by the time they are old enough to formulate a belief regarding gods, their communities will already have already instilled that belief.

The fact is, all atheists have an opinion on whether any god exists or not.

Yes, my opinion is that it is silly nonsense. The phenomenon of god belief does reveal something interesting about the nature of human consciousness, but that has nothing to do with whether or not any particular concretization of that instinct is true. None of them are literally true. But of course none of this means anything to you because you are encased in a belief filter.